Our Adoption Story of Carter

~Our Adoption Story of Carter~

Since the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I often spoke of adoption.  At that time adoption was just a thought.  We spoke about adopting someday… but never thought it could happen.  We had 3 children already, and my youngest daughter was just turning 1.  It didn’t seem like the best time to start an adoption.   I can’t remember exactly how it happened but I know God worked on both of our hearts and we came to each other at exactly the same time and said “I think we need to consider adoption again”.   In our minds … the adoption process would probably take a few years.  So we started researching.. high and low.  When you start researching International Adoption, you have to research each agency, and then each country.  It really gets overwhelming!  But we did our homework.  Eventually we got to the point where we only had a few countries to choose from based on our criteria.  And then we couldn’t get approved because our income being too low for International Adoption.  Honestly that was just God closing that door.  After much research we decided that the foster to adopt program would be the best route of adoption for our family. There are so many reasons to adopt from foster care.  Mainly because there is such a need!  Secondly because it is virtually free!  We knew it would be hard emotionally because the foster care system is sometimes unpredictable. But we felt like we were ready to start!

We contacted Ashley at the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home to begin our home study.  And we started taking the appropriate classes through the state to become certified.  Everything was rolling along smoothly!  Well…. When we were about halfway through our homestudy, gears changed and my husband was offered a pastor position in Many, La.  After much prayer we felt this was the direction the Lord was leading us and we moved.  We thought that all we would have to do is transfer our incomplete homestudy to our new district and continue.  WELL what we found out after we moved, was that we would have to start over.  That was a BIG shock to the system.  It was time to STOP and really seek where the Lord was leading us. 

During this entire process, we wanted a completely healthy newborn or toddler.  We did not consider special needs.  There was no reason behind it, other than every mother wants their child to be born healthy.  I remember looking at all these waiting children on websites… early in the process. These kids all had some special needs from very minor to very severe.  My thoughts were always “no I can’t handle that” .  There are some precious kids waiting out there, and I would always pray they would find homes… but it wasn’t mine.

And here is where “The story of Lealand” begins.  If you know our family, you know I don’t have a son named Lealand.  So you must be wondering where I’m going with this.  In the midst of all that doubt and redirection by God…. There was Lealand.  Lealand was a face on one of those waiting child websites.  When we saw his face and read his story, it was like our hearts dropped.  Lealand was our son.  We felt it.  Through all of those times I told God “NO I can’t handle it”... He was molding my heart.  He was shaping it so at that moment when I saw this little face on a screen… my heart would melt.  Lealand was about 2 years old, born with down syndrome.  We jumped up and called his social worker… trying to get her to consider us. You see, Lealand was in state care and there were so many inquiries about him, that his social worker was overwhelmed.  They needed a family that was homestudy ready and available to get him ASAP.  And as I stated above, our homestudy was not ready!  We would not be considered.  There is nothing harder in adoption than feeling like you have found your child, and being rejected, or not even considered.   We were heartbroken!  But we continued to pray and found ourselves at a point where we thought we needed to pursue a special needs adoption; down syndrome in particular.  With the help of our social worker, Ashley, we were able to turn our homestudy we had been working on into a private adoption homestudy instead of a foster/adoption homestudy. Once we made this decision, the financial aspects changed.  Although a special needs adoption is usually lower than a healthy newborn adoption, it still meant we had to come up with quite a bit of funds we did not have.  During this time we had a good amount in our savings, and we planned on fundraising or borrowing the rest.  Well just when we thought we were sitting pretty, along came the enemy to try and wipe us out.  Satan hates adoption... he hates when Christians start redeeming lives, so there will be obstacles.  For us… it was a spider bite for my husband that landed him in the hospital for two days… and for me it was stepping out of truck and breaking my ankle, requiring surgery.  And did I mention this completely wiped out our savings?  So there we were left with no cushion for our upcoming adoption. 

In the midst of these trials,  it was time to find our sweet child.  We came across Christian Adoption Consultants along the way.  Tracie Loux was an adoption consultant and has adopted 3 special needs children, 2 with down syndrome. She is over the special needs department with CAC and was exactly the person we needed.  She was amazing!  She was on our side the moment we contacted her.  The Lord led us straight to Christian Adoption Consultants!  The beauty of working with them is that they are not an agency.  They create an amazing profile of your family (which I always explain looks like a scrapbook of your family) and a Dear birthmother letter. You then send those out of multiple agencies across the country.  This process cuts down the wait times for adoptions dramatically.  You don’t stay on one agency list for months or years.  Most of our families are matched within weeks or months.

This is how it happened for us.  Our homestudy and profile books were complete. We call this “paper pregnant” in the adoption world.   And then we sent out multiple copies to agencies.  We did not know where are son would come from, but we stalked our emails and stared at our phones every second of the day!  Then one day our adoption consultant, Tracie, called us.  She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.  She said that she just got a call about a baby boy born in Kansas City, he was 5 weeks old, born with down syndrome, and his birthmom was making an adoption plan for him. Are you interested?  Before she was even done speaking, my husband said “When can we come get him?” This was the call we had been waiting on!   Of course we were ready to pack up and go get him but there were a few steps that had to take place.  First, we had to submit our files to the agency and they would email the birthmom our information.  Normally the agency would send her several families to choose from, but in this case they felt like we were a perfect match, so they just sent ours.  If the birthmom asked for more to choose from then they would do that.  Well... we waited a few gut-wrenching days to hear back from them.  In that time we were trusting the Lord and getting things prepared as if it was already a Yes.  As we were in the oil change line... yes getting the oil changed in the mini-van, we got THE call.  It was Tracie!  She said “the Birthmother loves you, you were the exactly family she had been praying for”.  Of course you can imagine the look on the mechanics face when we both started shouting and hugging each other in extreme excitement.. while getting our oil changed.  We were off to Kansas City in the next few days. 

The first picture we saw of Carter

We learned that Carter had a heart defect from birth (which is very normal for children with down syndrome)  it was a very common defect but still very serious for such a small baby.  He was now 6 weeks old, still in the NICU, because of the heart defect, and feeding issues.  Because his little heart had to work so hard, it became very tiring for him to drink a bottle.  He would fall asleep during feedings and have to be fed through an NG tube.  Later it would be determined that he needed a G-Tube in his belly to be able to come home.  All of this news was very scary because it was just foreign to us.  We have never taken care of a newborn that needed so much extra work.  It was scary, but The Lord was so close to us during this time.  We just knew what we had to do, and trusted He led us here for a reason.

So we arrive in Kansas City, ready to meet our son whom we had been praying for by name for months!  We would be meeting the birth mom at the hospital for the first time that night.  We didn’t know what to expect.  They told us she was a very smart, intellectual, put together person.  Not your typical birthmother situation, if there is one.  She was a woman in her 40’s, working on a higher education.  She had two older children, and one younger child. Carter would be her 4^th.   Waiting to meet the birthparents of your child is the most nerve wrecking feeling in the whole world!  There is really no way to describe it.  What do you say to a woman who is going to be giving you her child?  I mean ‘thank you’ is not really enough!  So there we were waiting and waiting…. She was late!  Her social worker said this is really not like her, so we got in touch with her.  She was coming with the birth dad, who was NOT supposed to be involved.  That was a curveball!    Eventually they both arrived.  And words DID come out of my mouth, even though I am not sure what I said!  But then we all went up to the NICU and we met him!  We met our Carter!  He was so tiny, so fragile, with all kinds of wires hooked up to him.  And as his birth mom was holding him I leaned over and whispered to her “He is perfect!”  We both cried. 

We had our chance to hold and snuggle him that night.  We even stayed late after everyone left.  It was surreal. 

Our first time holding Carter

 The next few days were a little tricky because the birth dad decided to “think about things” for a little while.  We respected his decision but also were just aching inside!  We had permission to visit Carter so of course we were there with him all day every day until we heard from the agency.  During that time, the birthparents would just pop up and visit while we were there.  And on one magical night, his birth mom came by.  I knew she was acting differently then she had been.  I was kind of scared, but still had my faith in what the Lord was doing.  She was holding and rocking Carter and she spoke the words.  “Katie, I didn’t just come by to visit tonight. I spoke to J (the birthdad) and we want M(who is Carter) to be your son” And she stood up and handed him to me.  I just started crying and saying thank you , thank you so much. We were both crying of course!  The sad part is that Michael (my husband) was not even in the room because the NICU only allowed 2 people in the room at a time!  So as soon as she left, I ran and got him out of the waiting room.  It was the news we were waiting to hear!  He was ours!  Over the next few days we would go to court to get temporary custody.  We would spend the next 2 weeks in the NICU with our son.  It was great bonding time for all of us and we learned a lot about taking care of our sweet boy. 

Sweet snuggle time in the NICU

Our homecoming was on the horizon and we could not be more ready to bring Carter home!   He was coming home to 2 sisters and a brother.  Our children were just over the moon excited to finally meet their baby brother!  Each night we spent time praying for our special boy to come home and he was finally here!  The Lord took us on an incredible journey during our adoption! We never knew that a child with special needs would fit so perfectly into our family.  At the beginning I did not know how our family would react.  We were definitely called crazy a few times by some close friends and family, but they would soon fall in love with sweet Carter like we did.  The only reason people react the way they do is because of fear.  I was scared in the beginning and avoided a special needs adoption.  It wasn’t until the Lord molded and shaped our hearts that we considered it. And at that point we couldn’t avoid it, because the Lord called us to it.  And I’m so glad he did.

Brother and Sisters holding Carter for the first time!

I hope our story is inspiring to those of you who are considering adoption.  I wish each and every Christian family would consider it.  I know adoption is not for everyone, but my hope is that more families choose this option for their family.  I know some families turn to adoption in the midst of infertility.  And I am so thankful for these wonderful couples who will be blessed with many children through adoption.  Then there are families like ours who have biological children and just wanted to add to their family through adoption.  I am grateful and thankful for whatever reason brings your family to adoption.  It is a gift and a journey that the Lord wants you to take.  It will bring you closer to God then you could ever imagine.  There are ups and downs, mountains of paperwork, moments of joy and moments of pure torture! And waiting…lots of waiting!  Waiting for emails, waiting for fingerprints, waiting for phone calls.. I could go on and on.  But none of this matters when you are holding that precious child for the first time and you can finally say to yourself….”this is what love is”. 

If you or anyone you know is interested in starting an adoption journey please let me know!  
katie@christianadoptionconsultants.com